Don't you feel a little sorry for him?

[blue]No, I don't feel sympathy for Mr. Hanssen. He is with other monsters and he receives punishment received by other like him. [blue]

Ted Michael Morgan

Christians are always crying for blood.

Not too surprising, though, considering they wear an execution device around their necks.

you do understand that treason usually means the death penalty in many countries in the world right? the fact that you are feeling sorry for him for simply being put in jail shows how much of an idiot you are. oh and one more thing, before you start feeling sorry for him from watching the movie, why don't you do some research on him first. even he himself (in real life) said he did it only for money, nothing else.

I felt sorry for him throughout the whole movie. I know the terrible consequences of what he did, but it's really hard to internalize that when watching this movie because he's so pathetic.

People like this make me really angry.

This guy was an FBI agent, a person trusted with super sensitive, ultra delicate information about US, our nation, our security, our intelligence.

This nut put EVERY SINGLE person at risk, by exposing our national secrets to our enemy, telling them countless details about everything we would do in an emergency or any other kind of disaster. It's possible he exposed our security measures with regards to the military as well.

WHO KNOWS WHERE THAT INFORMATION WENT? It could have ended up ANYWHERE, such as Iran, North Korea, Cuba, or Venezuela... People who HATE US... and you folks don't think this s**t is serious???

How would you feel is someone betrayed your trust, and told everyone all YOUR background and details to your enemies/friends? Think of the damage you'd have... and Hanssen spilled NATIONAL secrets... and got a LOT of people killed.

Put it this way, the damage he caused is STILL classified...may never be fully known.

23 hours a day solitary? I'd settle for 24.

I do realize that the way Hanssen was portrayed in Breach could cause sympathy for him, and I realize that Hanssen was a pretty cold hearted bast****.

But throughout the entire film, I felt no sympathy for this man at all (mainly because he caused at least 3 murders).

However when I read that he spends 23 hours a day in solitary confinement, I was horrified. Here is a man who knows that he will have only 1 hour a day of human contact for the rest of his life. All for what? For violation of the Espionage Act which he pled guilty to. For $1.4 million in U.S. secrets that, in the end, didn't do that much damage (or at least visible damage).

So far, I don't think he deserves 23 hours a day in solitary confinement. Then I come to another reason he was imprisoned: For the lives of at least 3 people. However, Robert Hanssen didn't kill these people directly. And even murderers don't get 23 hours of solitary confinement a day.

In the end,I guess that when you kill an American, you get a life sentence without possibility of parole. But when you double-cross America, you get a life sentence without possibility of parole and 23 hours/day of solitary confinement.

What do you think?

"Heavy lies the crown."
Jack Nicholson, The Departed

first off, i didnt' know this was a true story until i saw the review on imdb. 2nd, the way that hanssen was portrayed it seemed like Eric and Hanssen were the good guys and the FBI and all other agencies were covering up something that went beyond anything. i was just gasping my breath for the suspense. but there was none. it turned out to be a nothing of a film. complete waste of time.

The Espionage Act of 1917 provides for the possibility of the death penalty for the crime of espionage, the crime for which Hanssen was convicted. FBI director Freeh has said that his actions were tantamount to treason. In any case, he qualified for execution and escaped it by cooperating with authorities in the investigation of his crimes. I can't be sure, but I don't think it is entirely necessary to cite the betrayals of Motorin and Martinov and their resultant executions to qualify him for the death penalty, though it certainly helped.

Notice that in the movie, Dean Plesac (Dennis Hasbert) tells O'Neill that they need to catch Hanssen in the act of making a drop. O'Neill says, "That will get him the death penalty," to which Plesac replies, "Don't you think he's earned it?"

It is true, that at an emotional level you might think he'll suffer plenty for his crimes, particularly considering his active mind and nature that will be butting up against his cell walls as long as he lives. But he knew what he was doing and what the consequences were, and he inflicted a staggering blow to the security and integrity of his country. If someone tries to kiss a rattlesnake, you don't blame the snake for what happens.

What may seem hard to understand is that his religious and patriotic fervor were real. He was a study in contradictions, able to genuinely embrace entirely contradictory principles at the same time. For an example outside the subject of espionage, he was a passionate and highly fundamental Catholic who candualized his wife with his friend, as well as posting erotic stories in public forums which were crafted so that people who knew the Hanssens would recognize them, stories that included kinky ideas pretty far from what staunch Catholics would consider acceptable.